A slang term referring to any
"Metahuman" who lacks true metahuman abilities, but
instead relies on technology to provide the same effect.
This term specifically excludes wearers of Powered Armor
from that definition (see "Tank"). Taken from the
Inspector Gadget cartoons.

The Garbage Man

The Garbage Man (real name:
Ralph Norton, 1941 to Present) is a minor metahuman with the power to consume and
digest nearly any organic material. He was featured in People
Magazine in March of 1985. He currently works as the manager of a
landfill near Bayonne, New Jersey.

Gateway Station

Construction was completed on Gateway Station on September 4, 1989, and it was opened
for business a week later. Located in earth's trailing LaGrange point, the
station houses nearly a thousand workers in the various low-gravity and
no-gravity factories, laboratories, and shipping points, and serves as a
staging point for the continued colonization of the solar system.
It is the first stopping point for any cargo or personnel going to
Armstrong Base (on the Moon), Welles Base (on Mars), and Stronghold Prison
(in the trailing LeGrange point). (Note that
prisoners are shipped directly to Stronghold, while supplies for the
prison are shipped to Gateway first).

Genetic Engineering

Advances in genetic engineering since the year 1970 have enabled
scientists to totally rework animal and plant life. While scientists
still cannot create a life form from nothing, they can take an existing
life form and change its attributes. The best-known example of such
animals is the herd of pygmy elephants currently on display in the Tokyo
Zoo. These elephants average a foot and a half tall at the shoulder, and
weigh an average of forty pounds apiece. Likewise, several zoos
now have on display animals that were extinct up until recent years
(the best example being the small herd of mastodons kept at
the Moscow Zoo)..

Research into human engineering is a subject not widely encouraged,
though some pharmaceutical companies are trying to get permission to
begin creating biological replacement organs for people who need heart,
liver, or eye transplants. In addition, some governments have looked
into genetically enhanced soldiers.

The Geneva Protocols

Coming from the US/USSR 1985 Summit, the Geneva Protocol bans the use of supers
in any nations armed services, militia, or paramilitary unit.
Their employment by law enforcement and intelligence
agencies for internal security is not prohibited.
This has led some nations to be very creative in the
labeling of government-supported superheroes.

Gin

A slang term used to refer to
any event that results in the creation of a new
superhuman. A vastly contracted version of "Origin Event",

The Global Guardians

The Global Guardians are a
team of superheroes sponsored and sanctioned by the United
Nations. The team was founded in 1963 after several
years of study on just what the impact and effectiveness
such a team would be. The team size was arbitrarily
set at nine members; the thought was that nine was the
limit to efficient teamwork, while being large enough to
combat the worst of all superhuman threats. The
original lineup of members were chosen by their respective
governments. Later lineups were directly recruited
by other members of the Guardians. Among those who
keep track of such things, they are considered the
premiere superhero team on the planet. They are
often also considered the most powerful super-team on the
planet, though this is not necessarily so.

The Global Guardians are
headquartered in the Watchtower, an orbital facility in
geostationary orbit orbit above New York City.

The Gods of Mythology

According to scholars who have
studied the Gestalt Incarnation phenomena, all of the gods described in ancient mythology are real, or at least they were.
The power of the belief of their worshippers made them real. By that same token, without
worshippers they grew weak and faded into nonexistence. Many gods who
long ago lost all their worshippers went into a state of dormancy rather
than just let themselves fade away. In the modern age, some of these
sleeping gods awoke and, seeing the state of the world, decided to try
another method to garner the belief they need to keep them in existence.
Deciding to take advantage of the existence of mass media, they chose to
act openly as superheroes or supervillains, depending on each god's own
morals. The wonder or fear the general public feels watching their
actions on the news or reading about it in the papers gave the same
effect as they experienced from being worshipped long ago, sustaining
them.

The Grand Gulag

The underground "meta-prison" known as the Grand Gulag was
originally founded by Joseph Stalin in 1927 as a forced labor
camp after the discovery of catalyte near Tunguska in Siberia.
Over the intervening years, the Soviet Union dug deeper
and deeper into the frozen ground, forming a large catacomb of
tunnels. Once the catalyte ore was played out, the
tunnels were transformed into a massive maximum security
prison. Stalin christened this facility "the Grand
Gulag"; if it ever had any other designation, its has been
lost to history.

When the first metahumans arose in the Soviet
Union in 1939 and 1940, Stalin had them imprisoned until their
loyalty to the Soviet state (and to him) had been proven.
Those whose loyalty had been proven became agents of the
government; those whose loyalty remained in question became
permanent residents. After the fall of the communist
government in Russia, the Grand Gulag was converted for use as
a metahuman prison full-time.

The prison has a reputation for being escape
proof. The facility is almost entirely underground with
tightly controlled access, and the nearest signs of
civilization is a village of 54 peasants who still haven't
quite made it to the 20th Century, let alone the 21st located
almost three hundred miles away. Of the seven people the
Russians acknowledge as having successfully escaped from the
Gulag, six were later found dead on the Siberian tundra.
No trace of the seventh prisoner has ever been found, but
authorities assume he also died in the attempt.

The Great and Powerful Oz

Tunde Adebule (1974-1996), better known as the Great and Powerful Oz was a street performer in Times Square, New York City.
Originally from Senegal, he was an active metahuman with the power to cosmetically transform
himself into various characters from the film The Wizard of Oz.
His street show consisted of recitations of entire scenes of dialog from
the movie, accompanied by appropriate changes in appearance. He
was killed during a mugging in January of 1996.

The Great Bermuda Punchout

A popular name
for the International Fighting Championship, held each
year in Hamilton, Bermuda.

The Guardsmen

The Guardsmen are a galaxy-spanning group who are charged with
enforcing the Laws of U’tua the Gardner. Created in one of U’tua’s final
acts they were gifted with costumes that drew upon a seemingly unlimited
source of power, able to tapped no matter where one was in the Galaxy.
The Guardsmen were able to project force in ways limited only by the
individual’s imagination, and limited in power we are assured by the
consensus of all Guardsmen. The few occasions where a Guardsmen has
shown the unlimited power they are capable of the whole galaxy trembled.
Though
at times accused of caring more about the big picture than individuals
the Guardsmen ensure life is protected, and sentient species are not
wiped out.

The first Guardsmen of the Sol System is Pierre Montblanc,
who has already earned the wrath of several nations.

Hamilton, Bermuda

By dictate of Lord Doom, no one in Bermuda is homeless, hungry, or unemployed, and
Hamilton is his personal social engineering laboratory. Within the city, all
labor is performed by domestic robots, while the citizenry is "encouraged"
into high tech, scientific, artistic, and athletic pursuits. Adults spend
three months of every year in intensive training in their professional
pursuits and one morning a week in "social instruction". Failure to
score well in mandatory yearly aptitude testing results in "counseling"
and potential "career reassignment". The population of Hamilton is the
best educated of any city in the world.

Heatwave

Heatwave is a fire-wielding
superheroine active in Memphis, Tennessee. She is
not known to be a member of any team or agency, and does
not operate with any sort of official backing or sanction.
Heatwave is primarily known for her nude appearance in the
April 1991 issue of Playboy magazine. The
centerfold picture of her is now one of the most popular
pin-up posters in the world. She has never revealed
her real name.

The Heroes of Filmland were a
short-lived attempt by Universal Studios to compete with
the Disney-sponsored Imagination teams. The
individuals collected as a team lacked any sort of
cohesiveness, teamwork, or even likeability in some cases,
and as such they didn't stick together as a team for
longer than a year.

The Hsax (pronounced "hizzakks") on Earth are
a former Xorn slave-species who
have been freed or had escaped during the Xorn Invasion of 1984. As Xorn slaves,
the Hsax were used to increase the numbers of combatants in set piece battles.
Early in their conquests, the Xorn realized the need for fodder.
Honorable personal combat was not to be had in large scale, set piece,
or siege assault battles. And such battles were necessary to conquer
worlds. To fill in the ranks, they targeted the Hsax, whose natural
warlike tendencies were somewhat similar to that of the Xorn, but who
showed the ability to work well as a coordinated horde. The conquest of
the Hsax home world was bloody and costly to the Xorn, but superior
technology minimized the losses for the conquerors. The conquered were
slaughtered, but within two short generations their fecundity had
restored the population. By that time, however they were indoctrinated as Xorn slave-soldiers.
With each generation, the Xorn bred the Hsax to be more ferocious, to be
better followers, and to reproduce more quickly. The Xorn had learned
the lesson taught by their own overthrow of ZhizhHsin. They did not
forget how to fight themselves, and implanted in each Hsax at birth a
micro-bomb attached to their aorta.

The Hsax appear to be a fusion of a human and a giant black-furred
rat. There is a large amount of sexual dimorphism of this race. Males
stand low to the ground and are about a meter in length with and equivalent
length of leather-like tail. Females are roughly 50% larger than males
and have no tails. Furthermore, they are never combat trained since they
are usually pregnant or nursing. In addition to this, their skeletons are very pliable, allowing them to
slip through small places. The current generation of Hsax carry four to
six developing pups in utero for roughly 18 weeks before giving birth.
Hsax pups are weaned from their mother at the end of their first year
when they are put into either combat camps (male) or nursery camps
(female). They reach full size and sexual maturity in roughly six years.
The natural average lifespan of a male Hsax is estimated to be 30 years,
but in their role as slave-soldiers, this was seldom reached. Female Hsax
have an average lifespan of 45 years.

Because of their
bloodthirstiness, most of the male Hsax on Earth are incarcerated. Surprisingly, those few female
Hsax who survive the insanity that seems to occur when they are not
pregnant or nursing actually can fit into human society to a limited
extent. With proper grooming, they are treated in a similar manner to
metahumans in many places. Recently, a rash of abductions of male and
female Hsax has been occurring, and while many point their finger at
Communist China, there is no strong evidence who is behind it.